The Swiss elections have received unprecedented foreign press coverage
swissinfo
International coverage of the Swiss elections has focused on the victory of the rightwing Swiss People’s Party and the role of its leading light, Christoph Blocher.
The images of riots in Bern and the party’s controversial “black sheep” poster campaign ensured that this year’s parliamentary elections generated unprecedented media attention across the world.
Party posters featuring white sheep http://wvwnews.net/story.php?id=2074 two weeks before the election.
“For one of the oldest and most stable democracies in the world, the election campaign was unusually divisive because of Mr Blocher’s contempt for traditional Swiss consensus and his breaking of taboos,” said British newspaper The Guardian.Britain’s The Independent, which before the election had suggested Switzerland was Europe’s “heart of darkness”, led with the headline “‘Racist’ campaign pays off in Swiss poll”.
The BBC felt the party’s campaign had caused “deep unease among the large immigrant community” but had also “struck a chord with voters”.
The German magazine Spiegel Online said the defeated parties had lost deservedly, “paying the price for a miserable campaign”.